economic and social development

The Economic Research Forum (ERF) announced that is inviting proposals for papers to be presented in ERF’s 22nd Annual Conference, which will be held in Cairo, Egypt, March, 2016. Authors who wish to submit proposals, should be engaged in research on the ERF region (the Arab countries, Iran and Turkey), regardless of their affiliation to ERF. Previously published papers or those accepted for publication may not be submitted. The deadline for submitting proposals is June 15, 2015.

The authors of accepted papers (one author per paper) will be invited to present and take part in the deliberations of the conference at ERF’s expense. If the paper is accepted for publication in a refereed journal within two years of the conference, the author(s) will receive an honorarium of $1,000. In addition, the refereeing committees will select six papers—one per each of the six parallel session themes—for the Best Paper Award. Winning papers are evaluated on the basis of their contribution to knowledge, rigor and policy relevance. The Awards will be announced at the Closing Plenary of the conference and each winning paper will receive an extra $1,000. Finally, the editors of ERF’s Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ) will select worthy papers for possible inclusion in the journal, following the journal’s refereeing process.

CONFERENCE OBJECTIVES
The 22nd Annual Conference provides a unique opportunity for regional researchers to interact with international peers and with each another. It also provides a venue for the presentation of multiple research papers, both in the plenary and parallel sessions, with stimulating discussions and feedback. In addition, the conference features special events, the presentation of selected research projects and celebrates excellence in research.

MAIN THEME AND SUB-THEMES
The theme of the plenary sessions this year is A Post Arab Awakening Development Agenda. The themes of the parallel sessions are always varied enough to accommodate diverse research interests. Submissions for presentations in the parallel sessions may be made under the following areas:

Bellin began the session, chaired by Bassma Kodmani (Arab Reform Initiative), by presenting on ‘Lessons for Democratic Transition in the Arab World.’ The core argument of Bellin’s presentation was that established findings in the literature that economic development better sustains democracy, that neighborhood democratization has a high chance of leading to transition, and that a professionalized military apparatus is more likely to ensure a smooth transition to democracy; none of these findings are actually deterministic. In this sense, per Bellin, identifying lessons of what has worked elsewhere will not provide a definitive roadmap for Arab countries’ successful transition to democracy. For instance, the idea that higher GDP is more conducive to democracy is not a set rule, since half of the poorest countries in the world are democracies, Bellin argues, adding that some authoritarian regimes can have high levels of economic development as happened in the cases of Chile and Argentina.

The three speakers broadly explored the many forms of democracy and their different results in terms of growth and development. More specifically, they looked at the way in which institutions impact economic outcomes, the way in which different political systems and electoral processes do or do not impact the success of democratization, and the relationship between culture and democracy.

Przeworski began by expressing his optimism towards the future of the region, emphasizing that he was not dissuaded by the terrorist incident that took place only two days prior to the conference, claiming the lives of over 20 individuals at Tunis’ Bardo Museum.

Przeworski then proceeded to ambitiously summarize two enormous bodies of economic and political literature to make sense of the complex relationship between development and democracy. According to Przeworski, the complexity of the matter means that for the large part very few things are certain, largely since econometrics fails to reject the many brilliant, albeit sometimes divergent, postulated theories. The one thing Przeworski claims we can be certain of is that democracies do not grow slower than non-democracies; determining whether democracies grow faster, however, “is next to impossible to tell.” For one thing, notions of democracy are diverse, different variables (e.g., GDP or levels of growth) are often taken into account, and the way in which the data itself is organized also differs largely among economists. The result: divergent results that only make this topic more complex and hard to understand.

Economic Research Forum (ERF) held the first plenary session of its 21st Annual Conference on March 20 in Gammarth, Tunisia. The session came to answer a number of questions of vital importance to the transition processes a number of MENA countries embarked on following the Arab Spring. Namely, what is the nature of the causal relationship between democracy and development? Does democracy lead to more growth and development in countries? Conversely, does development lead to democracy? And, perhaps more importantly, what does all of this mean for MENA countries in transition.

Following the two cross-cutting themes of resource-dependency and social polarization, Elbadawi, who largely focuses on oil-rich Arab economies, began the session by giving a presentation titled ‘The Arab Spring: Much Violence, Little Democracy,’ in which he tackled three broad questions: (1) Is democracy important for development? (2) If so, why has the Arab Spring been such a “late awakening”? and (3) Why is there so much violence? .

Economic Research Forum’s (ERF)21st Annual Conference kicked off on March 20 in Gammarth, Tunisia, at the Golden Tulip Carthage Hotel. The event, joining over 200 economists, political scientists and policymakers from the region began with opening remarks by ERF Managing Director Ahmed Galal, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Abdel Latif Al-Hamad and Hedi Larbi of the Tunisian Economic Association.
The three deplored the heinous terrorist incident that rocked Tunisia’s Bardo Museum, leaving 23 dead, a few days prior to the conference, and emphasized that continued hard work is the best way to counter the sinister ambitions of extremists. They also expressed their gratitude to the ERF network and highlighted how, in the words of Hamad, “ERF is an institution that has grown from nothing to something important and dynamic thanks to its fellows, affiliates, management and staff.”

On his part, Galal said the conference was being held in Tunisia in light of the ‘Democracy and Economic Development’ theme under which it is being held and the fact that Tunisia is a place in which “democracy is in the making,” adding that the wide attendance to the conference is a testament that “[ERF] is supportive of countries that are democratic, inclusive and civilian […] We are not fearful and are not running away.” Galal also gave a brief rundown of ERF’s accomplishments over the past year and noted the introduction of a new policy dialogues program by ERF to bridge the gap between research and policymaking in the region. “ERF is like a submarine, it is very powerful but also underwater,” he explained, adding that for its fruits to fully materialize it needed to surface and ensure proper reach to the community of policymakers in the region.

From 2010 to around mid-2012, uprisings swept MENA in what has come to be known as the ‘Arab Spring.’ While bread was at the forefront of the demands of protestors, shouts for freedom and social justice were also heard across the region. It is with this in mind that many countries of the region embarked on messy democratization processes with the tacit understanding that democratic regimes are more conducive to development.

Both theory and empirical evidence, however, are inconclusive when it comes to the impact of democracy on economic growth and distribution, on the one hand, and the impact of growth and distribution on democracy, on the other. For one thing, conceptions of democracy are not uniform, but often take different forms with varying repercussions on policy-making and development when they materialize.

In this context, the Economic Research Forum (ERF) announced that it will hold its 21st Annual Conference in Tunisia, March 20-22, under the theme of ‘Democracy and Economic Development.’ The conference has come to be recognized as the premier event for economists in the Middle East, bringing together over 150 policymakers, economists and political scientists. Through a number of plenary sessions, participants at the conference will seek to uncover and understand the link between democracy and development, the possible impact of different forms of democracy on development and how to best navigate the transition towards democracy in the Arab world.